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Saturday, November 02, 2013

41 Films. 2 Books. 2 Reviews.

Read two interesting books on cinema in
recent times. And wrote two reviews.

Read the reviews. Buy the books. Then *cough*
buy my book also.

40
Retakes – Avijit Ghosh

Having been a lifelong sucker for lists
myself, I feel a listmaker succeeds the moment someone disagrees with the list.
It is a sure sign that the reader has gone through the list, processed the
entries, thought about it a little and was then provoked to say, “WTF, how
could he not include <insert name of cult classic>?”

Secondly, the whole point of a list is to put
some sort of order to a relatively lesser discussed/known topic. Making a list of
the Top 10 Amitabh Bachchan Films is an exercise in futility. What will you
keep? What will you drop? And what additional perspective will you bring to
Deewaar that everyone and their Rahim Chachas don’t know already? Making a list
of – say – Amitabh Bachchan’s ten best guest appearances is a better idea. It is
something everyone has a sense of but not complete knowledge. There is enough
fodder to pick and choose ten, leaving out some. And you set up the stage for
disagreement with a few passionate souls. [See above.]

Avijit Ghosh’s book – 40 Retakes: Hindi Film Classics You May Have Missed – meets both
the above criteria with flying colours. Instead of going the route of 100 Bollywood
Films and flogging Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam, Sholay, DDLJ to death,
he has chosen to do forty films which should have been watched more. For many
reasons ranging from poor promotion, poor timing, poor luck and poor box-office
clout, these excellent films did not become huge hits. They did not become cult
classics – in the truest sense of the word – either.

He tells us why he believes they deserved better
– plot, performances and the hidden nuggets. He also tells us lots of inside dope,
culled from interviews with stars, directors, technicians. It is easy to create
nostalgia around known films. I think this book manages to create a fair amount
of ‘pull’ towards unseen films. (It is unlikely you would have watched too many of
them.)

Like any film fan worth his movie ticket, I believe several others
like – for example – My Brother Nikhil,
Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Sooraj Ka Saatvan Ghoda, Drohkaal, Khoj, New Delhi Times should have been included...
and we can debate this till eternity and beyond. The author can, of course, say
the list is his. But of course, the right to disagree is entirely mine. But by
fostering this disagreement, he has won his battle.

Overall, a delicious book that makes you trawl
YouTube and order DVDs to catch up on some great films. I just hope 40 Retakes gets a wide audience and doesn’t
become a missed classic among books on cinema.

Amar
Akbar Anthony – Sidharth Bhatia

An entire book on one film is fraught with
doubts.

Was there enough masala in the scenes so
that a detailed narration of the plot doesn’t become boring? Or can the author
bring out hidden facets to make it interesting? Was there enough drama behind
the scenes to savour? Were the opinions of the film – typically appearing in
diverse sources – interesting enough to make a story of their own? By placing
the film in the social context it was made in, is there more drama?

And – to my mind – the most important
factor: Does the author love – as in, LOVE – the film so that if the story
falls short, the passion pulls through?

By ticking of all of the above boxes, Sidharth
Bhatia, who had earlier written a book on Dev Anand’s Navketan Films, has done full
justice to the Masala, the Madness and Manmohan Desai with his book on Amar
Akbar Anthony.

When you choose a film like Amar Akbar
Anthony to write a book on, you have won half the battle. And if you do a good
job of it, you have won the remaining half and set yourself for a sequel
really.

I couldn’t tell if the book has suffered from
the fact that Manmohan Desai himself wasn’t there to recap the madness but his
son – Ketan Desai – and his associates – Kadar Khan, for example – bring out
his madness well. Manmohan Desai’s brand of filmmaking is
described in vivid detail and – thankfully – there is no attempt to analyse it. How do you analyse madness really?

It also answers some questions many people
would have about the film. Like, why did Amitabh Bachchan – then India’s
biggest star by a long margin – allow himself to be beaten unconscious by his
biggest rival? How did educated, logical people like Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna
and Rishi Kapoor get in the mindset to film scenes that violate every laws of logic
and physics?

And of course, there are the delicious
anecdotes like the time Manmohan Desai overruled the views of the country’s
biggest star in his most successful year and said, "Lalla, after the
movie is released, whenever you walk down the street, people will call you
Anthony."

The only crib about the book is that the
book gets a major dialogue – probably the movie’s best – wrong. The correct dialogue
is “Aisa toh aadmi doich time bhagta hai. Olympic ka race ho ya police ka case
ho...” But that is a minor blemish in an otherwise memorable effort.